Sunday School

A Sunday School is traditionally a meeting together of Christians within a church setting for the purpose of receiving instruction about the Bible or God.

While Sunday School is often thought of being for children, this is not always the case. Sunday School differs from a church service in that the teacher is not usually the main pastor and the setting is usually more informal and smaller and open to more questions or interaction from those attending. It usually is also broken down by groups, either by age, gender, or marital status.

Many churches have Sunday school classes before or after the main church service.

Attending Sunday School is often the only opportunity for children in secular countries to learn about the Bible. There are, however, some countries that do allow religious classes in public schools.

Sunday Schools often have an informal curriculum, but in many instances there is a formal schedule in place. This way, Sunday School courses can replace religious classes that were once allowed in public schools.

Origin

Sunday Schools originated in about 1780 with Robert Raikes in Gloucester, England, a newspaper publisher involved in prison ministry. He served many who were waiting to die, and began to realize that we need to begin earlier with prevention in order to be most effective in Christian outreach. The aim was to provide basic schooling to the working class, who could not otherwise afford any kind of education. The Sunday schools were held by Christians on Sundays as this was the only day that the prospective students were not required to go to work. The Industrial Revolution had resulted in many children spending all week long working in factories, and Saturday was a normal part of the ordinary work week. Christian philanthropists wanted to free these children from a life of illiteracy. Scriptural texts were used as lessons, to teach reading and other subject matter; and the schools also served to give the Gospel to the unchurched poor.

Among the obstacles and challenges this kind of ministry faced from the beginning was the fact that the activities were conducted separately from worship services. It ministered to the poor. Feelings of class distinction were at a very high level in England at the time, so some were afraid it would break down what they considered to be God-given class distinctions. The teachers and their students were not able to meet in facilities that were geared to education (homes, factories, warehouses, empty, abandoned buildings), and it was free and thus non-income producing. During the first 150 years of this educational ministry, it was taught only in the English-speaking world, and was aimed at alleviating social conditions.

19th century

Well into the 19th century, working hours were long for adults and children alike. The first modest legislative restrictions came in 1802. This resulted in limiting the number of hours a child could work per day to 12 ! Moreover, Saturday was still part of the regular work week. Sunday, therefore, was the only available time for these children to gain some education.

After the War of 1812, Sunday school spread widely in the United States. In the U.S. the emphasis of the Sunday school was primarily on the Bible because of the availability of public schools which taught more general subject matter.

The 1802 legislated 12 hour limit that a child could be worked was not lowered again until 1844.

With the turn of the century, from about 1900 on, church catechisms were used more than the Bible. Catechisms were intended by their authors to teach the whole system of doctrine, but were summaries of the Christian faith according to the particular interpretation of each denominational group. They relied on questions and memorized answers.

From 1820 to 1835, the Great Revival in the U.S. changed the denominational face of much of the U.S. from Congregational and Reformed to Baptist and Methodist.

The first national Sunday School effort began in America during this period in 1824; its stated purpose was to organize, evangelize and civilize. The focus was intentionally evangelical, and so within the next 100 years the Sunday School had become the primary outreach arm of the Protestant church.

As the relatively novel concept of theological pluralism also began to take hold about this same time in 1832, one of the biggest Sunday school unions decided to establish Sunday schools in the "New West", the area of the Louisiana Purchase, as a missionary enterprise. Small communities would select a neutral place and Christians of many backgrounds would come together in what were called Union Schools. They decided to teach the Bible, because "the Bible unites", whereas catechisms divide. Because of this religious pluralism, Sunday school lessons focused on Bible stories rather than on doctrine, and on application rather than on interpretation. Publication of catechisms began to slow as a result. Sunday school students were often encouraged to memorize large portions of the Bible, earning prizes and incentives for doing so. This idea was dropped when it was realized that the students were more interested in the prizes than in God’s word!

European immigrants found little land to farm on the east coast so they quickly re-migrated to the west. Many were Catholics so some Catholic leaders saw the Sunday school movement as a Protestant plot to capture the Catholic youth of the west.

Sunday School organization began expanding to include all ages. Sunday School became a way for unbelievers to be introduced to, and then assimilated into, the life of the church. By the late 1800’s, Sunday School was looked to as the main hope for church growth, a view that continued until the mid-twentieth century.

20th and 21st century

Problems began to develop as newer Sunday school curriculums failed to emphasize personal conversion of life style, and neglected Christian apologetics in favor of a more entertaining style of witness with a "feel-good" approach which contained nothing about personal sacrifice and commitment in the face of doctrinal confusion, indifference, pop culture, the new age movement and worldly opposition. Christian educators began to be at a loss to explain why young people began to leave their churches, and entered colleges and universities unprepared to meet liberal and atheist challenges to belief in Jesus Christ as the only Savior of the world.

Most recently, informed, committed conservative Christian apologists have pointed out that to be effective in equipping young people and professionals to face the challenges of a highly educated secular society, the church needs to redefine the mission of pastors and youth leaders to include training in apologetics and worldview.

They assert that when America was a young nation, the clergy were often the most highly educated members of the community. The congregation looked up to them and respected their intellectual expertise. It is imperative for seminaries today to broaden the education of pastors to include courses on intellectual history, training future pastors to critique the currently dominant anti-Christian ideologies. Pastors must once again provide intellectual leadership for their congregations, teaching apologetics from the pulpit, instructing the congregation in ways to defend scripture against the major objections they are likely to encounter, and to not avoid this intellectual task. A religion that retreats to the therapeutic realm of personal relationships and feelings will not survive in today's spiritual battlefield.

See Home schooling and Seminaries.